Love in Transit

by Jana Aston

  ‘What are you doing?’ I pause from piling more leaves on top of my leaves to look up at him.

  ‘Giving you a head start.’

  ‘I don’t need one,’ I scoff. ‘I can beat you fair and square.’

  He nods. ‘And how are you planning to light your leaf sculpture?’

  I shake my head at his sarcasm. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ I mutter.

  He falls silent, but I can see he’s on the verge of laughter as my pager goes off.

  Rub sticks together!

  Great. Neither Rena nor I were girl-guide material. We don’t have a brother between us, and we never watched Blue Peter. She clearly has the same skill set as me here, i.e., she’s got nothing.

  I stand back and stare at my heap. It’s up as high as my knees now and looks as if someone swept up the garden waste. ‘That should do it,’ I declare, with far more confidence than I have any right to.

  ‘You reckon?’ he grins, folding his arms across his bare chest and sprawling his long legs out in front of him.

  ‘If I were you I’d quit hanging around and get started,’ I say, mostly because he’s making me even more nervous than I already am.

  ‘When I’m ready,’ he says, nonchalant.

  ‘You’ll regret it when I win,’ I say.

  He scrubs his hand over the stubble on his chin. ‘Will I? Way I see it, my buddy owes me big time if I win, and you blow me if I lose. It’s a pretty good place to be in.’

  I glance up at the camera I’ve spied attached to the eves of the cabin and hope that the wind carried his words away.

  Picking up two sticks, I try to casually rub them together, hoping for a sparky miracle.

  ‘I hope you never get genuinely stranded in the woods,’ he laughs, enjoying himself. ‘Because you’d have been eaten by a bear by now.’

  ‘Yeah, and you’d have wrestled him to the ground and barbecued him over your fire, no doubt.’ I’m losing my temper because it’s becoming apparent that this stick-rubbing thing is useless and I know how much Rena would love those designer wedding clothes.

  He gets up and dusts his jeans off. ‘You said it, Goldilocks.’

  I watch as he strolls across to his circle and drops on his haunches. In five minutes flat he’s cleared out a hollow with his hands, and used the various sticks, leaves and moss he’s gathered to create an organised little pile that looks horribly like the basis for a good, roaring fire.

  I start rubbing my sticks faster like a mad woman, my feet planted wide on the floor.

  ‘You look fucking hilarious,’ he says, and then picks up his empty beer bottle and whacks it against a heavy rock.

  ‘What the…?’ I say, as I watch him stoop and pick the curved glass base out from amongst the shattered shards. Oh, balls. Yes, of course, you can use glass, I think. He briefly studies the sky and then stoops again with the glass angled towards the sun. Because I know Rena will be watching, I keep frantically rubbing my sticks, baring my teeth like a dog with the effort of it.

  ‘You’re going to give yourself a friction burn if you keep that up,’ he says, momentarily looking my way. ‘Whereas any second now I’ll have good old flames.’

  ’Shut up,’ I mutter, sensing impending doom.

  I don’t have to wait long. In less than a minute he whoops, and I look over to see he’s bloody done it. Orange flames lick through the moss and twigs he’s built, and he gets up and dances, shaman like, around his tiny fire.

  I chuck my sticks to the ground in disgust and flex my aching hands, ignoring the buzz of my pager because Rena is no doubt spitting mad about her designer dress package.

  Chapter 8

  It’s getting dark, and there doesn’t appear to be any heating in this cabin.

  ‘Is there even a key to lock the door?’ I feel around the door frame and search the shelves because I don’t care if the TV company is supposed to ensure our safety, we’re going to be on our own out here in the woods tonight, and no one will hear us scream. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that the girl always cops it first.

  I sense Ryan move in close behind me so he can feel along the top edge of the frame, and sure enough, he comes up with a silver key.

  ‘There you go, Goldilocks.’

  I twist round and his hands close around my upper arms.

  ‘Are you still pissed at me for making fire?’ Amusement dances in his eyes and I relent because he only did what we’re here to do. I’d be cock-a-hoop if I’d made fire.

  ‘I’ll forgive you if you can do it again in the fireplace.’

  He glances out of the window at the gathering dusk. ‘No sunlight left.’

  I sag, because I’m cold and it’s only going to get colder.

  ‘Or I guess I could just use the matches in the kitchen.’

  I thump him on the arm for winding me up. ‘Do it. Do it now.’

  ‘At the risk of sounding like a caveman, how about you check out the dinner options while I build the fire? I need to know pretty damn fast if you want me to go out and kill something to cook before nightfall.’

  Given that he’s built like a hunter and already proved his fire making abilities, I don’t doubt that he could go out there and club us an unsuspecting badger if necessary. Can you even eat badger? I think you could probably get arrested for that. I watch him leave to gather firewood and pray that the TV production company have stocked the fridge with something that doesn’t need killing before we can eat it.

  ‘You made good pizza,’ Ryan says.

  ‘You made good fire,’ I tell him, happier now I’m warm and fed. We’ve eaten pizza off plates balanced on our knees; curled up on the sofa by the fire, and having washed it down with a couple of glasses of white wine, I’m feeling better than I have all day. Granted I’m still in a tutu, and my Katniss hairstyle is now a half-up, half-down, dragged through the woods backwards affair, but I’m chilled.

  ‘Do you think they’re watching us now?’ I ask, leaning over the edge of the sofa to put our empty plates on the floor.

  Ryan shakes his head. ‘Doubt it. They’ll all have gone home to their beds by now, and Brad and Rena have a night of five star luxury ahead of them.’

  I try not to think about Rena and how much she wanted me to win her couture wedding dress. She’d look fabulous in a charity shop dress, I console myself. She DOES look good in her charity shop dress. A damn sight better than I did this morning, that much is for sure.

  I’ve been trying to put off verbalising this, but I’m going to put it out there so I can move past the thought. Ryan looks beyond fuckable by firelight. His body is alight with gold flickers of light and shade, clinging to his hollows and his hard edges.

  He sighs and looks my way. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  I chew my lip. ‘Okay.’ We’ve been locked either in battle or in lust for most of the day, but the one thing we haven’t really had much time to do is talk. I don’t even know his last name.

  ‘How come there’s no guy in the picture?’ He stretches over to the table and picks up both of our wine glasses, handing me one as he settles back against the deep blue velvet cushions.

  I sigh, because that’s a question I get asked pretty much every time I go home. ‘You sound like my mother.’

  He takes a drink, savouring it. ‘I mean it. You’re…’ He looks me over. ‘You’re kind of unique, Connie. Different to any other woman I’ve known.’

  I play with the stem of my wine glass. ‘I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.’

  ‘I mean it in a good way.’

  I pause, swirling my wine while I think how to respond. ‘There was someone.’

  He doesn’t ask me anything else, just waits. The only sound in the room is the movement and spark from the fire.

  ‘We were together for a long time. Nine years, almost.’

  His eyes widen a fraction. ‘Wow.’

  ‘I know. I kind of imagined we’d be the first down the aisle, but things don’t always work out the
way you think they will, do they?’

  I don’t elaborate further. The last person I want to think about while I’m sitting here like a zombie bride in the remnants of a wedding dress is Luke Charlton, and I certainly don’t want to hash over the fact that he’d been seeing someone else for the last eighteen months of our relationship. Call me picky, but faithfulness is non-negotiable. There have been a few others since, but no one who’s held my attention enough to go back more than a few times.

  Ryan’s stares into the fire for a while before he speaks. ‘My wife died in a car accident a week before our first wedding anniversary. She was twenty-five.’

  Shit. I stare at him, momentarily stunned. ‘God, Ryan,’ I breathe. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He knocks most of his wine back. ‘Five years ago now. Nearly six.’

  Jesus. I’m pretty much lost for words. I’ve been acting like a jackass all day, goofing around in a wedding dress when his wife is dead. I feel like a completely insensitive cow.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, turning to me. ‘I don’t know why I told you. I never tell anyone. Bit of a mood killer.’

  I half smile, sliding my wine onto the table and crawling over to wrap my arms around him. He pulls me into his lap and settles back against the cushions with me in his arms.

  ‘Thank you for telling me,’ I say, quiet as his fingers move in my hair, gentle as he unpicks the messy plaits.

  ‘Truth is it’s been a long time since I’ve been as attracted to a woman as I am to you,’ he says. ‘This show isn’t the kind of thing I’d normally do, but Brad’s been the best friend I could have asked for. Forcing me to stick to beer when I wanted to empty neat whisky down my throat straight from the bottle, to leave the house when I wanted to barricade all the doors and windows, to get in the shower when I wanted to let myself rot from the inside out. It’s been a long road.’

  I hold him, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath my ear. It doesn’t feel much like we’re on opposing teams right now.

  ‘And now? How are you doing these days?’ I ask, stroking the flat of my palm over the warm curve of his shoulder.

  I feel him nod against the top of my head as his fingers finish their work in my hair.

  ‘Good mostly. Like me again,’ he says. ‘I’m still breathing. Still here, still moving forwards.’

  I turn my face into his body, letting my lips rest over the dip above his collarbone. I understand his gym-perfect biceps a little better now; the gym is his place, his routine, one of the things that keeps him moving forwards. ‘Best way.’

  He traces his fingertips down between my shoulder blades.

  ‘I’ve enjoyed today more than you know,’ he tells me, his fingers lingering on the hook and eye fastenings holding my dress together.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Can we rewind to about three hours ago?’ he says, and I feel him smile against my hair.

  ‘To when you made fire and I got furious?’ I ask, smooching my open mouth into his neck. He smells like man-nirvana, hints of spice and lemon shower gel and a day’s hard work in the woods. It’s heady. His hand runs up my thigh.

  ‘Earlier than that. I promised you something in the bathroom.’

  Like I could have forgotten. The only good thing about losing the fire battle is the fact that Ryan now owes me oral.

  ‘You did?’ I murmur, innocent, and then I gasp when he grips my hair in his hands to tip my head back.

  ‘Like a cat, I think I said.’ The firelight picks up the bolts of green in his eyes. ‘Like a cat licking your clit.’

  And just like that, we’re back to where we left off. Me wet, him in charge, both of us turned on. He’s opening the fastenings of my dress now, and after far too long trussed up in it today, I’m more than glad to let him get me out of it.

  ‘Just drag it over my head and chuck it on the fire,’ I breathe, when he pauses to work out how best to get me naked.

  A half grin tips his mouth as he pulls it up over my body, and I quickly unlatch my bra from the useless position its worked itself into around my waist. I’ve got a bit of a love-hate relationship with my boobs. They’re bigger than I’d like and make choosing clothes a bit of an art form, but when it comes to sex, they’re my secret weapons. Grown men have cried at the mere sight of my boobs. Ryan’s cock stirs under my ass.

  ‘You have the tits of a goddess.’

  Laying his hand flat on my sternum, he pushes me back across his lap and fills his hands with them, cupping, moulding, playing with my nipples. His face tells me that he’s turned on, as does his throbbing cock against my back.

  ‘I like the way you touch me,’ I tell him, watching his hands, then his eyes.

  There’s a seriousness to him now, an intenseness as he dips his head and takes one of my nipples inside his mouth. I stroke his hair, watching his tongue flicker against the pinkness of my painfully hard nipple, and he looks up and holds my gaze, questioning.

  ‘Was there any cream in the fridge?’

  I swallow hard and shake my head as he flips me underneath him and lies over me.

  ‘No.’

  For a moment he lowers his whole weight onto me, pressing me down into the softness of the sofa, and I’m overcome by how very much I want him buried balls deep inside me right this very second. He’s heavy in the best kind of way, rendering me womanly. I reach down between us for his belt.

  ‘Not yet.’

  He drags his body down mine, his tongue damp in the hollow between my collarbones, hot across my breasts, licking over the curve of my stomach.

  He lifts himself away from me to tug my knickers down my thighs, and when he opens my legs to accommodate the width of his shoulders, I feel as if someone just turned the heat up in the cabin to sauna level. Everything is just… more, like having the radio on full, blaring volume. My need is so loud that it’s rattling my heart against my ribs.

  And then he licks me, pushing his tongue between my pussy lips, into the slippery wet heat of my lust, sliding from bottom to top and then back again. And oh, the sounds he makes, as if I’m the world’s most delicious woman and he wants me for every course of his banquet. He eats me as if I’m his starter, suckling, and as if I’m his main course, filling his mouth and his whole face with me, slipping his fingers inside me as he makes good on his promise to lap my clit like a pro.

  I clutch at his hair, shocked by how good it is, my heart pounding in my ears as he uses his fingertips to spread me wide. I’m rocking my hips up, restless in his mouth, on the very edge of my orgasm. He knows of course, and he keeps me right there, giving me just enough to make beads of sweat break out on my forehead and my thighs quiver uncontrollably.

  ‘You want to come?’ he whispers, French kissing my pussy as if it’s my mouth. Can you French oral? That’s what it looks like, and that’s what it feels like. That blow-my-mind kiss he gave me in the bathroom earlier? He’s doing it again now, only between my legs. I watch his tongue as he draws delicate patterns on my spread pussy, and then his eyes move up to meet mine when he fingers my clit, fast little flickers of his index finger while he licks me there at the same time. You know when you watch a porn movie, and the guy heads south, and all you can think is, please be good, please be good, and then he turns out to be a complete amateur and your heart breaks for the poor actress who’s gonna have to fake it again? Well, if this were a porn movie, which there’s an outside chance it could end up as seeing as there’s a camera on the wall, then women would be pressing rewind to watch Ryan give it to me, because he’s gold fucking standard. My entire body is desperate for this orgasm. I’m rigid from my scalp to my purple polished toes.

  And then he slides his hands under my ass and lifts me right up into his face, finally giving it to me with everything he’s got, and I feel as if I’m at the top of the worlds tallest helter-skelter fairground slide, furiously trying to kick my feet into the tangled sack because I’m desperate to start the whirling, screaming descent. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I’m goi
ng over. I don’t know if my scream is inside my head or loud enough to break the windows of the cabin, and I’m shaking like an autumn leaf in a tornado. I can’t stop it, and for a moment I’m frightened by the sheer intensity of it. I’m too high, this can’t be good for my heart, what if I fall, don’t look down…

  And then I do. I look down just as he looks up, his wolf-eyes intense and full of wonder, and I surrender and hurl myself down the top of the slide with my hands in the air like I just don’t care.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! I want to scrape my own face off with my fingernails, my body is out of my control and under his; he’s my sex Svengali lover and I’m coming hard, and wild, and glorious, all over his face.

  I realise now that my clitoris was right. I’ve been a half assed lover compared to Ryan. I’ll send it some flowers. I don’t know how I’m ever going to even touch it again because now I know how good it can be, and there’s no unremembering shit this good.

  I’m slowing down now, whirling around the safer, sublime edges of my orgasm, out of danger and coming in to land. I feel his laugh, low and intimate as he butterfly kisses my inner thighs.

  ‘I like that you’re a man who keeps his word,’ I say, running my fingers through his hair as he crawls up my body.

  ‘I like that you’re a girl who knows how to come,’ he says, smoothing my hair back off my face. ‘That was as good for me as it was for you.’

  Hooking my arms around his neck, I laugh shakily, still giddy. ‘I don’t think that’s possible.’

  His hand moves in my hair, cradling my skull. ‘I mean it. Watching you come was just about the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, Connie.’

  I can’t explain why, but I’m so moved by his expression that I have to look away from him. Perhaps it’s the sex endorphins still washing around in my blood, or the long, inexplicably bizarre day we’ve spent together, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s been through some of the worst times life can chuck at you and still staggered out the other side amazing.